Astronomers Prepare for Juno’s Seventh Science Pass of Jupiter

Citizen scientist David Englund created this avant-garde Jovian artwork using data from the JunoCam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The unique interpretation of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot was done in a style that pays tribute to French Impressionist painter Claude Monet. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/David Englund

Astronomers are preparing for the Juno Spacecraft’s seventh science flyby over Jupiter, which is set to occur tomorrow.

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft will make its seventh science flyby over Jupiter’s mysterious cloud tops on Friday, September 1, at 2:49 p.m. PDT (5:49 p.m. EDT and 21:49 UTC). At the time of perijove (defined as the point in Juno’s orbit when it is closest to the planet’s center), the spacecraft will be about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) above the planet’s cloud tops.

Juno launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet’s cloud tops — as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers). During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.